Xiang storms to new world record in her warm-up race

China’s Liu Xiang set her first world record at the Asian Games yesterday in an event she was only doing for a bit of fun.

The 21-year-old prefers freestyle sprinting so was surprised when she turned around to check the electronic scoreboard and saw she had just broken the world record for the women’s 50-metre backstroke.

She powered down the pool in 26.98 seconds to take 0.08 off the previous record of 27.06, set by China’s Zhao Jing at the 2009 world championships in Rome, when swimmers were aided by now-banned buoyant suits.

“The 50-metre backstroke wasn’t my major event, so I didn’t expect anything from the race,” Liu said. “My main focus is actually the 50 freestyle,”

“I think I was really concentrated on myself today. This was the key.”

The 50m backstroke is not on the Olympic schedule and Liu still has the 50m freestyle to come Friday, so she planned to hold the celebrations for later.

“The bigger assignment coming up for me is the freestyle,” she said. “After that I will celebrate with the team together. It’s still kind of an achievement in swimming.”

Liu also managed to do something else no other swimmer has managed so far at the Asian Games by taking the spotlight from her star team-mate Sun Yang and Japanese teenager Rikako Ikee.

Sun cruised to a dominant victory in the men’s 400 freestyle in 3 minutes, 42.92 seconds, more than two and half seconds off his personal best but still 4.22 ahead of his nearest rival.

“My coach told me before the race tonight: ‘You are the reigning world champion and reigning Olympic gold medallist, you need to prove again you are the best in this event’,” Sun said of his motivation. “That was his expectation.”

He is now three-quarters of the way to an unprecedented four freestyle titles, having already won the 200m and 800m.

Only the 1,500m remains and he is the reigning Asian games champion and world-record holder.